


I loved and I loved (and I found you)

by KayNight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Family, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Reunions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayNight/pseuds/KayNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Rey? Rey, you’re… Rey you’re crying, are you alright?”</p><p>Crying? Is she crying? Rey raises a shaking hand to her face and feels the slippery hot slide of tears on her cheek and she finds herself gasping, struggling for breath. </p><p>Poe’s concern earns glances from the crew tending to the fighters on the deck- including the sharp eyes of the General, who begins walking across the tarmac towards them.  Rey rips her eyes away from the crease of Poe’s brow and alarmed questions and finds his eyes across the tarmac, General Antilles’ dark, solemn gaze.</p><p>The roaring thunder in her head drowns out everything but the sharp crack of a flight helmet hitting the deck. A flurry of emotions flicker across the man’s face - shock, disbelief, and fragile, tentative hope. He looks like a man ready to fall apart at any moment, he looks like how Rey feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I loved and I loved (and I found you)

**Author's Note:**

> go read the thrawn trilogy & the x-wing series. give the trio's kids some context. then go watch episode vii. get wrecked.  
> tracks: higher love, james vincent mcmorrow & hurts like hell, fleurie  
> also tw for allusions to suicidal thoughts

General Wedge Antilles of the New Republic shoots awake in a cold sweat, having caught a hour or so of rest in the past few hours since the Hosnian System was destroyed and he had to scrape together what was left of the fleet. 

The only thing that had kept him going was the sheer terror in the eyes of the new generation at the prospect of facing the stuff of their childhood nightmares, the Death Star being reborn, and the grim resolve of the Republic officers who remembered the destruction of the first two Deathstars and knew that it was only a matter of time until the Starkiller went the way of its predecessors. 

But Wedge couldn’t bring himself to feel anything, just numb horror and resignation, falling yet again into a fight he never seemed able to win… But in these quiet minutes, in the dark cool of his cabin, surrounded by nothing but stars, he lets himself feel hope. 

For the first time in years, he had dreamt of his daughter. 

Not the slaughter that played out in his nightmares, of the rending of her small form by his nephew, the boy he used to sit on his knee and tell stories to, her beloved cousin.

Not yet another merciless reliving of that day, but an honest to goodness dream of her laughter ringing like bells, the way she lisped his name when she lost her two front teeth, and the ridiculously elaborate hair styles Luke would try out on her short locks in the name of preserving her heritage. The roar of Tycho’s laughter when he saw the family portrait she painted on his old T-65b, right next to his kill count. She was nothing but sweetness in a galaxy seemingly always on the brink. 

So Wedge gets up, and goes to work. But that emptiness rattling about in his chest was gone, and instead he was filled with a familiar grim determination. He had lost before, and he will lose again. The best he can do is ensure that as few people as possible suffer the way that he has. 

When he receives news of Han’s death, he’s sick for hours afterward, unable to keep anything down. He sits in the darkness of his cabin and desperately searches for that feeling of serenity he had awoken to nights ago, but all he feels is despair. So few are left now, but still he remains. 

He remembers the day Leia told him that she was pregnant. It was after a mission debriefing of one of Rogue Squadron’s runs on Coruscant (getting a read out on their defenses the only way that pilots could) that she had called him aside, grabbing for his hand as soon as they were out of sight of the rest of the Council. Much to his bemusement, she had wrapped his hand in her own and placed it on her stomach, her eyes wide. 

In that moment, she had never seemed so young to him before, or with so much to lose. Even before the fall of Alderaan, she had such a ferocity about her, no weakness to be found. But then, as she told him, despite the gentle curve of her smile and the light dancing in her eyes, she had seemed both at her strongest and her most vulnerable. 

Later that night, Wedge had done what Corellians do best, poured Han a mug of Whyren's Reserve Whiskey, and asked him flat out: “Do you want the baby?”

Han had stared at Wedge, thrown back the mug in one long draw, swallowed hard and said: “More than anything.” 

Wedge sleeps fitfully, and has no dreams. 

A few days later he receives a message from General Organa, from Leia, that only reads "We need you." 

He hands over the fleet to his second command, and commandeers an X-Wing without a second thought.

\--  
The sun is a welcome warmth on her face when Rey emerges from the med bay and onto the flight deck, the tarmac still wet with morning rain, and the air strong with the stench of fuel and exhaust. She finds herself smiling as she takes it all in, the sights and sounds of the flight deck now comforting in their familiarity. 

She spots Jessika Pava across the tarmac, squabbling good naturedly with one of the Verpine engineers currently tending to the pilot’s T-70. The Verpine appeared to be fiddling with one of the laser cannons, glancing every now and then at Jessika, who was braced on top of the fighter’s S-Foils and offering what appeared to be unwelcome advice. Rey made eye contact with Jessika, who gave her a quick but enthusiastic wave, before scrambling to regain her balance on the upper wing. 

Rey found her smile twitching upwards into a grin, and tilted her head backwards, inhaling deeply. Although her heart was light, bolstered by the easy kinship she’s found in the resistance members who had taken her in without question, part of her always remains in the med bay, tethered to Finn, who still lays motionless except for the gentle rise and fall of his breath. 

Her stomach rolls with unease, and she scrubs at her eyes with a clenched fist, willing back the flood of emotions as she fiercely reminds herself that he will wake soon, and that just as he came back for her, she will stay strong for him. 

Her spiral was short-lived – cut off by the roar of an engine above, and the rush of pilots and mechanics clearing the deck next to Jessika’s X-Wing. She looked up at the descending fighter in surprise, Poe had told her that none of the X-Wings had been cleared for flight after the damage taken at the Battle of Starkiller Base. 

Her confusion cleared when the X-Wing settled on the tarmac, engine shutting down with a hum, recognizing the fighter to be a T-85 of the the New Republic’s fleet, not the older T-70’s that the Resistance used. Just days before she had rattled off the specs of the T-65 to Poe (during a discussion of the lasting value of KX9 laser canons parts in the Outer Rim no less) and had been intrigued by his descriptions of this newest model. 

Rey realized that this must be the liaison to the remainder of the New Republic fleet that General Organa had mentioned in the briefing to the squadron leaders the night before. 

The pilot emerges with care from the cockpit, helmet still on and firmly grasping the plating as he swings down the side of the X-Wing. Rey is momentarily surprised to see his uniform, almost drab compared to the bright orange flight suit she had expected, before remembering that the visitor was a General. Still, Rey just couldn’t shake feeling that something was wrong with the way he was dressed, the sharp dissonance between the bright white of his helmet and the dull shade of his uniform.

She suddenly remembers the thrill she felt the first time she saw the Resistance’s flight suits in person, and that some part of her still aches for her doll, tucked away in her home back on Jakku.

She watches somewhat warily as the General removes his helmet, but is startled by a bump to her shoulder before she can get a good look at his face. 

She swings round to face a sheepish looking Poe -

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I’m just eager to see the General; I haven’t seen him since I received my own squadron.”

Rey flashes a smile at him, taking in his wind swept hair and the bounce in his step, “It’s fine.” 

She too shifts her weight onto the balls of her feet, but rather than excitement, her stomach seemed to tighten with trepidation from an unknown source, “Who is he anyways? It seems like the whole base has been waiting for him.”

Poe flashes a brilliant smile at her, eyes crinkling around the edges and lighting up in excitement. He makes a grand gesture towards the tarmac and Rey follows his redirected gaze, finally laying her eyes on the visage of their much anticipated visitor.

The man looks to be about General Organa’s age, with lines tight around his mouth, hair that can’t decide whether to remain brown or just go steely gray all together, and dark, discerning eyes. 

“Rey, may I present to you, General Wedge Antilles, the best damn pilot in the New Republic-”

She hears the words coming out of Poe’s mouth, the sounds that should be connecting together into thoughts and ideas but it’s just not computing because her heart is in her throat and she can’t breathe and she doesn’t know why.

But she picks up on the falter in Poe’s voice, the hesitation as he seems to remember something worth including in his introduction, but is unsure about how to phrase it- “he and Luke, Luke Skywalker, were married. Are married?”

Poe trails off, noticing Rey’s silence, but remains unaware of the roaring in her ears, the pressure behind her eyes.

“Rey? Rey, you’re… Rey you’re crying, are you alright?”

Crying? Is she crying? Rey raises a shaking hand to her face and feels the slippery hot slide of tears on her cheek and she finds herself gasping, struggling for breath. 

Poe’s concern earns glances from the crew tending to the fighters on the deck- including the sharp eyes of the General, who begins walking across the tarmac towards them. 

Rey rips her eyes away from the crease of Poe’s brow and alarmed questions and finds his eyes across the tarmac, General Antilles’ dark, solemn gaze.

The roaring thunder in her head drowns out everything but the sharp crack of a flight helmet hitting the deck. 

A flurry of emotions flicker across the man’s face - shock, disbelief, and fragile, tentative hope. He looks like a man ready to fall apart at any moment, he looks like how Rey feels.

She doesn’t need to be able to hear him to know the word that he says to her, the only word past his lips – 

“Rey.”

Just her name, only her name, and Rey is falling apart and she can’t seem to hold herself together and she can’t choke down a single breath and she’s shaking so much she can barely stand so why does it feel like coming home?

The next few seconds pass in the blink of an eye, too fast and too slow for Rey to process but suddenly he’s crossed the space between them and his arms are around her and in that moment Rey finally feels safe for what seems like the first time in her life. 

Sobbing and grasping at the man who’s crushed her into an embrace so tightly she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to leave and she never ever wants to leave, never ever wants him to leave her, she manages to choke out a single word, just one word - “Dad.”

And it hits her like a thunderclap, like the dazed wonder she felt at the endless greens and blues of Takodana, and the all-encompassing warmth of Finn’s arms around her and the sound of his voice – ‘We came back for you’. 

Nearly overcome, she remembers the stories shared around sorting tables, around watering holes, under darkness and stars and on the hot, dry merciless wind of Jakku. 

There is only one X-Wing like his in the entire galaxy, in any galaxy.

The yawning maw of black that is the two Death Stars emblazoned on the cockpit is enough to reveal his identity to anyone with a memory of the Empire and of those who died to destroy it. 

He is Wedge Antilles, the only person to have flown both Death Star runs, the seemingly unkillable leader of the infamous and borderline suicidal Rogue Squadron, liberator of Coruscant, and steadfast companion to the Last Jedi. 

And somehow, impossibly, he is her father. She feels this truth as strongly, as fully, as she feels the thrumming of the force under her skin, the rush of blood in her veins, the pounding of her heart in her chest. It is undeniable, unchangeable, irrevocable. 

She remembers nothing but this, and it is harrowing – she doesn’t remember the warm curl of a smile on his lips or the sound of lullaby lovingly sung under the pale stars of Corellia - but it is enough. It is more than enough, because he is hers and she is his and she is home. 

\--

“Why did you stop flying?” She asks him later, eyes fixed on the sun setting lazily on the horizon. The force ripples with emotion, and she stiffens.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-“ Rey cut herself off. 

Wedge just sighs and runs a hand through his hair, shifting his gaze from the view to meet her own. He looks… nervous almost, and a little ashamed. But mostly sad, that omnipresent weight that hangs about his shoulders pulling him down more in this moment than she had seen yet. 

“…When you’re up there, you always need a reason to come back down. After we… lost you, and Luke left, I knew it was time to stop flying. I figured if I ever got up there again...”

“You would stay there,” Rey murmurs, tasting the words on her tongue and the despair that accompanied them. Her eyes filled with tears in a rush, and bile rose in her throat, and for the first time since their reunion on the tarmac, she reached for him, blindly through her tears and he pulled her tight to his side. 

They sit like that for a while, until the base is dark, and there is nothing but the stars. 

“I want to fly with you,” she finally says, her heart in throat and her eyes on the sky, “would you fly with me? Do you want to?” 

Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, close at the feeling of a kiss being pressed to her crown.

“More than anything.”

**Author's Note:**

> can u tell I'm a wedge fangirl. wedge fuck me up 2k16. i mean how can u not love this guy. all of his friends die. he doesn't want to make friends because he thinks they're going to die. he still makes friends. he fights ppl for his friends. he fights his own ppl for his friends. they still die. give this guy a break honestly. it only makes sense that rey would be his daughter tbh like that indomitable spirit? this girl lived alone for years, not even knowing what she'd lost and she kept going. like damn. 
> 
> please leave feedback. i am a hungry hungry hippo for comments. thanks y'all.


End file.
